


to dust

by madgrace



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Introspection, Other, POV Second Person, Poetry, i've never written in 2nd person before wack, prose, really just a flowery retelling of ashe's story in game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 02:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madgrace/pseuds/madgrace
Summary: Into the dust does your loved ones leave you. They crumble into the earth from whence you came. You are nine years old. You are a child with even less to your name. You are alone. Yet you are not completely alone. You are accompanied by the overwhelming weight of responsibility as you carry on trying to provide for yourself & the young children with you. Also in your company are the ghost from your past, the ghosts of the joyful life you once lived. The ones you loved have left you & yet you still feel them now, haunting you.Nothing ever really dies, does it?





	to dust

You are born from the dirt & ruin of the slums of your homeland. You have nothing to your name except the clothes on your back & the overgrown heart in your chest. Though in time you’ve come to accept your humble roots. You are a tender blossom rising from the dirt, proving to all that beauty can thrive even in the most vapid of places.

You name yourself after the cinders you were raised in. It becomes you, more than any other name or title you’ve been given. Your strands of pale of hair sway just as the dust does when stirred. You heart is light just as a warm springtide breeze. You have very little & yet you do not ask for more.

**You are ashe.**

You are dust & to dust you shall return.

You shall return

**— Return**

Into the dust does your loved ones leave you. They crumble into the earth from whence you came. You are eight years old. You are a child with even less to your name. **You are alone.** Yet you are not completely alone. You are accompanied by the overwhelming weight of responsibility as you carry on trying to provide for yourself & the young children with you. Also in your company are the ghost from your past, the ghosts of the joyful life you once lived. The ones you loved have left you & yet you still feel them now, haunting you.

Nothing ever really dies, does it?

You are a child, running barefoot throughout the city streets. & yet the concept of youth does not exist to you anymore. Your playthings are lockpicks & pocket knives. The only game you play is the game of chance as you fight with tooth & nail to keep yourself alive. Your only goals now are to survive & to protect — nothing else matters anymore.

Even at nine years old cruelty is not a stranger to you. The coarseness of the men & women rivals the brutality of the winter winds nipping at your skin & chilling your bones. There is no sympathy, no compassion within them. So in turn you pay them with little compassion either … you try to anyway. Even as the world’s cruelty continuously tears & shreds your bleeding heart it does not dwindle. You are tender still like the bruises all over your body.

It takes little time to familiarize yourself to the darkness that surrounds you. Your eyes & your heart almost forget what it’s like to see the light. & Then all at once you are pulled out of the darkness & engulfed in sunshine. This sunshine comes in the form of a man, a man who you robbed & still looked over at you with compassion. The kindness in his eyes makes you wonder if perhaps angels do really exist. The sudden warmth is overwhelming. You’ve lived in the cold for so long you’ve forgotten what it felt like. & Yet you thrive in it. You are a flower finally allowed to grow again. You pick up your withered petals & start anew.

In this new life you are given the very thing that cost your entire livelihood with it’s absence — family. You have a father in the kind man who pulled you from the depths of despair. But you are not the sole child of him either, nor are you the eldest. A young man with a brightness in his eyes like starlight. He holds the same kindness & warmth of his father & finally you remember what it feels like to be loved.

You finally remember there is more to life than the desire to survive. You are provided with not only with basic necessities, but education & literature as well. Finally the words on the printed pages of the coveted book you stole have meaning. & With it your life does as well. The heroes painted across the book covers give instill in you a new sense of purpose. No longer is your only drive to care for yourself & for your loved ones. It is now to care for all the innocent & unfortunate. You want to make a difference in this world. You want to bestow the same selfless kindness that your new father had given to you.

& Yet with the sun comes shadows & with the rain comes storms. Again is another person ripped from the tender confines of your heart. The brother whom you adored, whom you idolized is now nothing more than the dirt he was dragged through before being killed for a crime that was not his own. In the home that brought only warmth & joy there is now the dull ache of loss. You remember what it is like to grieve again. Again you are haunted by the faces of those departed. They fill your every waking moments as well as the dreams that leave you waking in the night breathless & terrified.

The warmth that once resided in your father’s eyes has turned to fire. & In that fire there is a bitter frost you’ve never seen in him before. He has known grief as well. But grief comes to all of us in different ways. No two people respond the same. & while you bleed from your heart every time a person is torn from it, his heart gone numb to the dull ache that fills him where his son once stood. His warm smiles & kind eyes are less frequent now. You hope to provide the light for him that he had provided for you.

But still the bodies at your feet are not yet complete.

You are sixteen, not quite a child but not a man either. Youth dances upon your freckled face & your eyes still shine despite the darkness that festers around you. You needn’t rely on your family for company any longer. In the very hands of those who had slain your brother you find kinship & love. You memorize the faces of your peers <strike>_( please don’t go like they did )_</strike>.

In your new companions you find a girl with a smile as sweet as the treats she bakes, a philanderer who’s mouth seeps out pretty half truths, a fellow aspiring knight burdened with the weight of a family title, a survivor laden with the massacre & prejudice of his people, a warrior who’s cold eyes remind you of the way your father looks following the death of your brother, a girl who’s brightness masks the loneliness resting in her heart — lastly a prince who’s tender eyes hide a darkness that’s slowly swallowing him whole.

They all have known grief as well.

Perhaps this is why you easily find a home in each of their arms.

But when a window opens a door closes. With your new friends in tow you tread across the battlefield that’s been made from your homeland. You come to face your father who now looks at you as if you were a stranger. The warmth in him is no more & now there is only the flames that threaten to burn you should you think of crossing him. But you know in your heart you are doing the right thing & you will continue to remind yourself of it when you attempt wash his blood from your hands.

There is no light left in him when he leaves this world.

He has turned to dust just as the others have.

They are dust & to dust they have returned.

You wonder when it will be **your turn.**

The days grow colder & all you are left with is your own heart to keep you warm at night. You pray to the goddess to spare the remaining people resting in your heart. But your prayers fall on deaf ears as once more are left to mourn someone you’d once loved. You look upon the storybooks you’d once looked to for comfort & wonder why none of them ever foretold of such sorrow that comes with the price of heroics.

None of the princes died in the books —

You are twenty two. You’ve now outlived your brother who had died in the name of justice. Though these days you feel as if true justice no longer exists. Things like justice, chivalry & honor have little use in things like war. & Yet you still cling to them & cling to the hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The light does come in the form of the prince who you thought perished all those years ago. You think perhaps this is a miracle sent from the goddess. However the angelic prince you once knew is gone, in it’s stead a man who better resembles the monsters you face in battle.

All **demons** were once _angels_ were they not?

Yet still you hope for a better world. You cling to the moon’s light & hope it is enough to keep the darkness from swallowing you whole. You have yet to realize that you are a star, the sun in which the moon’s light reflects off of. & When the angel prince frees himself from the demons of grief & vengeance you are there to welcome him into your warm light.

Yet even the sun is not free from darkness. Even the stars burn out & fall to the earth eventually. You may be a radiant blossom now sprung from the earth for all the world to see. But you are still dust —

**& to dust you shall return.**


End file.
